In an area with sweeping desert vistas, miles of date orchards and a town called Mecca, the Riverside County Fair stands out as more than a place to enjoy carnival rides and eat cotton candy.

The fair is also known as the National Date Festival, a celebration of the crop that was brought to Riverside County from the Middle East and an event that has an aura of an Arabian fantasyland.

Although the depiction of a local high school's scowling âArabsâ mascot has generated ethnic-sensitivity discussions in recent months, fair officials say no one has complained recently about the fair's kitschy Middle Eastern theme.

The fairgrounds are dotted with buildings with Middle Eastern flourishes. Spectators watch camels race instead of horses. A young woman dressed as Queen Scheherazade, of Arabian Nights fame, is crowned each year. The fair also is known as the National Date Festival, and date shakes wash down date couscous made in cooking demonstrations. More than 90 percent of U.S. dates are grown in the Coachella Valley.

âWhen you go to the fair, you expect to see all that,â said Victor Ward, 36, an Indio man who grew up in Thermal and has attended the fair just about every year since. âItâs engraved in you. You expect to see the (Arabian nights) pageants, you expect to see the camel and ostrich races. That is the fair. Without it, it would just be a regular carnival.â

The first date festival was held in 1921, when films such as âThe Sheikâ stoked a national fascination with what was viewed as the âexotic faraway landâ of the Middle East, said Sarah Seekatz, a UC Riverside doctoral candidate in history who is researching the date industry in the Coachella Valley. Developers tried to capitalize on the intrigue in the Middle East with a never-fulfilled plan for an Arab-themed resort, she said.

âThis was marketed early on as, âThis is like Arabia,ââ Seekatz said.

The Hollywood version of the Middle East is what is primarily on display during the fair in Indio, Seekatz said. The belly-dancer-like costumes Queen Scheherazade and her court wear are Hollywood fantasies, rather than clothes a real Middle Eastern woman would wear, she said. Thereâs a building on the fairgrounds called the Taj Majal, but the real Taj Majal is in India, not in an Arab country.

The 1921 International Date Festival lost money, and plans for a 1922 event apparently fizzled, in part because poor roads made travel to Indio difficult, Seekatz said. The event was resurrected in the 1930s as a county fair and date festival but canceled during World War II. It was then revived in 1947 with the âArabian fairâ theme that it has had ever since.

Middle Eastern imagery in the region has occasionally spurred controversy, most recently in November, when the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee asked Coachella Valley High School to change its âArabsâ mascot, which is now a scowling, bearded, hook-nosed man in a traditional Arab headscarf.

The groupâs legal director, Abed Ayoub, said he has seen imagery from the fair on the eventâs website but would need more time to look at it and discuss it with community members before commenting on any potential concerns. But, he added, âI heard this is a great event. I understand the history of the festival and the hard work that goes into it.â

Seekatz said there were some concerns about the fairâs Middle East imagery in the past â" but the worries were about presenting Arab culture in a positive light. In the 1980s and 1990s, after the Iran hostage crisis and Arab oil embargo, and amid Hollywood films that portrayed Arabs as threatening and dangerous rather than exotic and colorful, some worried that the fairâs image would be hurt, she said.

Newspaper articles from the time of the first Gulf War, in 1990 and 1991, revealed concerns from local officials that the Coachella Valley would be viewed as un-American for putting on a fair with Arab themes, she said.

Veronica Casper, the assistant fair manager, said she canât imagine the fair without its Middle Eastern imagery.

âThis is a theme weâve gone for year after year after year,â she said âThe fair is very rich in its heritage.â

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